Archive January 2009

When I was a small child my parents sometimes dragged us four children to church. We never liked it and always felt it a strange place. After a while they didn’t take us any more.

Then later when I was a bit older I went to chapel at school. It seemed a dark and dusty place where they only talked about the past and I longed to get back to the present and out into the fresh air.

It always seemed to me that real life was outside on the football pitch or having fun with my friends, not in church.

I wonder how church life here in Holy Trinity is for you?

What would you say church is?

• Is it a place where we talk about God for an hour so we can forget about him for the rest of the week?
• Or is it a club for a few religious fanatics?
• Or is it a place where we collect money to keep the building going and if we have any left over we give it to those in need?

I hope Holy Trinity isn’t like any of these things for you.

So what is the church? This is what we will be thinking about in our Sunday services over February and March. On March 1st we will read these words: 'As you come to Christ, the living stone, you also like living stones are being built into a spiritual house….'

As we get to know Christ we find we are being changed. And together God is building us all up into a living building where each one of us are living, growing stones. Each with a part to play.

The church is a family with God as our father and we are brothers and sisters. It is a community of people who believe in this amazing truth that God still loves us and he sent Jesus his Son to die for us that we might start again and live a new life.

The church should be the very opposite of a strange, dark and dusty place that lives in the past. It should be a place where we feel more and more we belong, that it is full of light and life and fun and laughter now. Where we can be ourselves and enjoy our new family where God is our Father.

How is it for you?

As we think about the church over these 2 months I hope it will draw us together a bit more closer to God and each other and we will experience God building us up more and more into the spiritual building he means it to be. I am reading a book at the moment called 'The Shack' The main character Mack is talking to Jesus in the story and Jesus says this about the church: 'Mack, you only see an institution., a man made system. That’s not what I came to build. What I see are people and their lives, a living breathing community of all those who love me, not buildings ond programmes. ….. It’s all about relationships and simply sharing life…..My church is all about people and life is all about relationships. You cannot build it. It’s my job and actually I'm pretty good at it.!' Jesus said with a chuckle.

So in these next two months let’s see what God has to tell us about the church and as we do so let him build us up into his living church so it isn’t a place that puts other people off, but is so full of life and goodness and people loving one another that they want to be part of it too.

Have a good month and enjoy being part of Holy Trinity Weston.... RB.